


dark nights: sleeping inside of me

by eggu



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Tragedy, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-12-17 06:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11845407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggu/pseuds/eggu
Summary: she always woke up in that terribly cold place, alone and without him. yet she could feel his presence on those dark nights, sleeping inside of her, within the room that she could never seem to breathe in.





	dark nights: sleeping inside of me

**Author's Note:**

> Although this WIP piece of writing is far from done, please enjoy this initial version I created for the amazing No Happy Endings fic fest last year. 《https://twitter.com/nohappyendingfs/status/817378261705498625》
> 
> This is the EDITED copy of the version written for the 2016 NHEFF. It has been modified several times since initial submission to the fest. Most recent edit was 08/26/2017.
> 
> Last edit before this one, archived here: 1/12/2017 < http://citystlight.livejournal.com/927.html >
> 
> All in all, this was still a labour of love (man, is world-building ever hard!) - big thanks to the following people for helping me through concept discussions, initial readings, advice, and inspiration: Juliette Vizcon-Sanchez, Linda Lam, Samantha Shan, Catalina Barbich, Louise Janine Palencia, my beta, Em, and @crescentmuseduo for loaning me their concept of their unreleased storyline.
> 
> All characters are original, as (even though I wrote it with my "boyfriends" from EXO/EXO's former members in mind), it was truly written from the angle of: "If I had billions of dollars to make this into a movie, who would I cast?" :)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ☆

All her life, she had always heard of the four beings that contributed to the origin of their world: Disruption, Nurture, Time, and Wisdom - Wisdom having been split into two due to the catastrophe that happened during their birth. After the creation of the flora and fauna were the events that led to the eventual collapse of the first perfect world to exist. The world that was built thereafter led to the modern day world she knew today.

The old world began with these four fully-realized entities brought to life by the Creator at the origin of all existence. He called them His Titans: Disruption, the Titan of Change; Nurture, the Titan of Growth; Time, the Titan of History; and Wisdom, the Titan of Erudition. In the new world, it was believed that their energies dispersed into the universe, their souls searching for each other even past death.

In the earliest versions of the narratives, Disruption was the first of the Titans to come into being, her birth extending over hundreds of thousands of years as the salt of the earth molded her into a being that, once she was fully formed, was given the power to change circumstance by the Creator. Seeing her solitary existence, the Creator brought the Titan Nurture down to the barren world to help breathe life into the land. Due to the fact that Time and Wisdom had not been born yet, the Creator did not yet have the developed foresight to realize until it was too late that Nurture’s abilities to encourage things to grow and Disruption’s incredible powers of modification of the world around them would lead to the destruction of the first world.

 

But how did this happen?

Nurture and Disruption sought to do what they believed the Creator wanted: to build a world so beautiful that They Themselves would come down and join them on earth. However, during their attempt, something went terribly wrong: Nurture began to spiral out of control. The land became overgrown, the mountains burst with hot lava, the oceans overflowed and dried up and overflowed again, and the wind would howl like a wolf searching for solace. The bitter ice and snow covered the land only to melt in intense heat, nature would die and be reborn again only to engulf the land in its chokehold. Nurture was frozen with no escape at the centre of it all, and no matter what Disruption did they could only make it worse.

In a last effort to intervene, the Creator bore another Titan to be born on earth to grant the knowledge to bring peace to the world. They sent Wisdom down towards them as gently as They could, but the wind only sped up their descent - so before they could reach the soil, a thunderbolt came crashing out of Nurture and Disruption’s storm, splitting Wisdom in half. Each half flew to a different corner of the world, and cried out in pain at the separation of their soul.

Devastated at what had happened, Nurture fell to the ground in bitter anguish and fell into a deep sleep from exhaustion whilst Disruption was flung into the ocean, falling into the same deep sleep after being swallowed by a grand, bubbling mountain at the bottom of the murky sea.

The Creator was greatly saddened but knew that the fallen Titans would soon rise again. To help them heal, They bore their last Titan but kept them by Their side to help Them restore the world. And as the Titan named Time grew, the earth began to change. Mortals were sculpted in the likeness of the Creator, and creatures were formed by the Creator’s innovative design and wonderful love. The trees grew proud and strong and flowers as delicate as moonlight covered the land in beauty. Humans began to populate the earth whilst two Kingdoms arose in delicate balance with one another, guided respectively by one ruler each: a young Emperor known for his kind, thoughtful heart and truly gentle but firm governance; and a young Sovereign Ruler known for her great intelligence of the physical and natural world.

A great castle was built at the divide between the two lands, and the Emperor and Sovereign Ruler were to meet for the first time and pledge a vow of peace to unite both Kingdoms in a treaty agreeing to the cessation of war between two opposing forces. But on the day they were to approach the castle at their borders, they collapsed and fell ill. The people were thrown into despair at their ailing monarchs, and for a long while the balance of the world was in chaos without its leaders.

These were the first stories of the origins of the earth, and when the Stories of Lost Knowledge were found in modern day they included the missing portions of the original narrative.

Nurture and Disruption had both awoken from their slumber, each gasping for their first breath of air in many years. Their Titan forms had faded somewhat, and their bodies had become so thoroughly human that many cuts and scrapes were on their skin from their attempts of grasping at freedom from their confines.

Disruption climbed inside the belly of a whale and escaped near the surface, the current taking her to the nearby shore where the Emperor’s adopted brother found her and took her in to care for her.

On the other side of the world, Nurture opened her eyes to see a bright sky in the middle of a field, the soft earth around her cushioning her in her solitude. There was nothing and no one around her, and in her confused state she lay there for many days, not realizing the pain she felt was hunger and thirst. At this point, there were no nighttimes and no way to tell how many days exactly had passed.

She felt a presence in the forest near her, and managed to get up and walk, weak and ready to collapse again at any given moment. The figure was tall with hair as pale as starlit snow, and glided ahead of her always just out of her sight. The apparition led her to another wide space devoid of trees before disappearing in a sudden rush of air as her eyes found a path.

Nurture followed it for twelve days and nights before finding the fortress of the Sovereign Ruler. Across the world, Disruption returned from a walk with the Emperor’s brother to stand in front in the structure that housed the sleeping Emperor. In their suddenly feverish state, both Titans fell before the feet of the guards just as the eyes of the Emperor and Sovereign Rulerflew open, memories rushing back to them and ordering that Disruption and Nurture each be brought before them.

The Sovereign Ruler saw her whole world in Nurture’s eyes, and from that point on they were virtually inseparable. With Nurture by her side, Wisdom the Sovereign Ruler began to have visions of the past and their current world. Her knowledge, already vast, grew exponentially - however, the price of an incomplete existence lay heavy on her and her memories would fade if she were apart from Nurture for long periods of time.

On the other side of the world Wisdom the Emperor and Disruption had faced their own challenges. Guilt-ridden, Disruption hid from the world in fear that she would cause the same damage she did so many years ago. The Emperor, with his calm resolution, respected this and let Disruption conceal herself to the depths of the fortress dungeons, unbeknownst to everyone else - even the Emperor's brother, the prince. Driven mad with longing and presumed loss, the prince drowned trying to save who he thought was his lost love.

At her breaking point, Disruption's powers began to bubble at the surface. The land begun to shake and quake from disturbances in the people’s beliefs, and many wondered whether their Emperor was leading them to their demise for caring for such a dangerous individual. With his kind soul, he calmed the unrest with a few simple words, for once he met Disruption he knew who he was (a Titan), and the immortal heart he possessed that could absorb all the enmity around him. Yet with such a vastly powerful heart he possessed, he felt empty and tired. He was lonely, and lacked love in his life although his subjects loved him the best they could.

Once each Kingdom was stable enough, the two monarchs made their way to the castle where the two lands met to converge where they once left off, with Disruption and Nurture by their sides, respectively. The moment the four of them laid eyes on each other, all the missing pieces clicked. Both halves of Wisdom met, brother and sister reunited in joyous laughter and each felt the most whole they had ever felt since the harrowing incident at their birth.

The male half of Wisdom regained a part of their Titan form: a being with golden scales adorning half of his back near his shoulder blade, a partial embodiment of the heart he possessed. The female half gained both wings, but instead of golden skin like her brother, on her back at both shoulder blades dark feathered wings could appear at will and reach to all corners of the earth. These were a blessing from the Creator at the split of Wisdom’s birth: something he had in mind for Time, but gifted to the female half to protect her human heart from hurtling towards the ground on that fateful day. And thus, nighttime was born to signify the changes of the days on earth.

The four wished to live in harmony, but the guilt Nurture felt was too strong. She loved Wisdom with all her soul but could not accept that they even partially forgave her for the wrongs she had done. Disruption did her best to calm Nurture but they lived in fear of the things they could achieve together: both self-destruction and a permanent change of this new earth. Disruption would often disappear for months at a time, making some excuse of quests for both monarchs’ sakes, but all of them knew why she tried to stay away.

Both halves of Wisdom did their best to comfort Nurture, but in her instability it was all she could do to suppress her emotions so that she would not endanger their beautiful new world or her beloved Wisdom. The Titan Time watched sadly from above, wishing to help her fellow Titan, and willed Nurture’s deep emotional scars to begin to heal, a process made inherently possible with the insistent presence of Wisdom the Emperor and his dragonheart.

One day, the Emperor and Nurture fell in love. It was a sight to see, as the world around them flourished and grew lush.

On their day of matrimony Disruption returned to witness the ceremony. Finally, love was conquering the dark past they possessed as Titans, and they all slowly began to become more human than they were before. Wisdom the Emperor’s human name was Seren; Wisdom the Sovereign Rulers’ was Stajha; Titan Disruption’s was Luulh; and Titan Nurture’s was Mara. Mara became the Empress of the earthly plane, alongside her beloved Seren and Sovereign Ruler Stajha.

In that moment, a flash of a vision came to all of them: it was the Time, calling from the plane of existence from high above, in the Kingdom of the Creator. The Creator was looking to name a successor, and Time did not want to take on the role. She was a Titan born almost completely human, named Eimeri, who wanted to be with her fellow Titans on their new earth, regardless of the cost. So Titan Time vowed to escape, and with Luulh and Mara still deeply affected by their last mistake, both Seren and Stajha sought to restore balance to all planes of existence.

Without their two majesties, the world fell into even worse chaos than before. In Mara's attempts to guide the people of the world without both halves of Wisdom, all humans began to hate her for her power over the natural world. They feared how she could affect the wind and rain, the heat and the cold, and the growth of all living things around her. She fought to remain as calm as possible while waiting for Seren to return, but without her beloved’s calm heart to govern her past pain, she began to wither away and slowly began to lose her sanity. Mara was chased out of their Kingdom into the forest where she searched for Luulh in their wait for Wisdom and Time to come back.

However, while Luulh caught Eimeri in their arms upon her descent, only Seren returned. Stajha was nowhere to be found and Seren sorrowfully informed Luulh that she was trapped in one of the planes of existence between the Creator’s Kingdom and the Earthly plane. So the night sky remained, and in Seren’s shock, Luulh informed him Mara was also nowhere to be found.

For a long, long time, the three Titans searched for Mara in the darkness, but all they found were humans attempting to track her down. For the first time in his lifetime, Seren’s anger filled the air as he knew he was running out of time: the world was dying and so was his beloved. All Stajha could could do was weep as she watched from above, and so the sky cried, adding to Mara's storm.

When they finally did find her, they learned she had been captured by ruthless, hateful humans who had tortured her for information of their Emperor. She was glad that she had not lost control: she did not want to hurt her Emperor’s subjects, but she was close to the point of death and her willpower grew weak as the seas became poisonous and the air putrid, storms brewing and thunder crashing, the end of the world fast approaching. Seren, Luulh, and Eimeri had come too late as Mara’s eruption began and the earth was beginning it’s descent into the raging depths of water that was destroying everything in its path.

Eimeri drowned but the remaining pieces her soul dissolved into the Earth. At a loss of what to do, Seren wept at the thought of not being able to help his true love, nor save the world he also loved so dearly.

In those moments, it was said in these rediscovered narratives that Seren had leapt into the middle of the storm and had simply held Mara in his arms - he had whispered his love for her as if they had never parted. Knowing exactly what they needed to do to protect her, with her remaining reserves of power Stajha pulled Seren and Mara towards her and past her plane of existence, and braced her wings to shield all those down on earth. In the final cataclysm, Seren used his mighty dragon’s heart to calm Mara one last time before a flash of light filled the air of the earth and Mara plummeted, sinking deep into the soil once more.

 

And so the world was calm, like nothing had ever disrupted it in the first place.

 

The night sky twinkled peacefully down at Luulh, who was left just as alone as she was at the beginning of the world. Some stories say she wandered until her entire being dissolved back into salt, her purest form, and every human who took a step into the ocean would feel Luulh in every wave until the end of time.

 

\------------

It had been a rainy evening but about an hour before midnight hit, the skies became clear. The exhibit of the rediscovered stories was everywhere in the news, and she had taken a long walk through the small forest near her corner of the city to try and rid herself of the odd feeling coursing through her. She thought deeply about the stories, feet never pausing their rhythm.

It was always said that at the end of his physical body’s existence, the male half of Wisdom sacrificed himself to curb Nurture’s seemingly unstoppable breakdown that almost ended the new world soon after it began. In the rediscovery, the stories concluded that Wisdom’s male half body burst and his existence scattered as far as the distant galaxies, and his heart itself became all the stars in the sky.

All the tales were too tall for her to really believe. At least, on the surface. However, her heart always gave a little tug when she heard stories of Wisdom. So one day when her heart pulled her to that fateful meeting with Dio, she couldn’t help but wonder of the Stories of Lost Knowledge that were rediscovered on the same day they encountered each other. 

The twinkling lights above had guided her to a clearing. That was when she saw him standing there in the centre of the field, lights reflected in his pale eyes although it really should have been too far away for her to notice. That should have been her warning sign, but the magnetic pull between them was so powerful to even try and ignore. 

The time they spent together felt like eons, but were far too short-lived. She had been abused in her past, growing up with cold caretakers, and he… he couldn’t remember his past at all. She did her best to fight the terrible feelings and memories that surfaced within him, and tried to fill their days together with laughter. Despite the darkness he felt inside, Dio brought light to her life. and in turn her lively spirit often brightened their home. On the day he proposed, they promised to love each other forever. But like all situations she had ever known, it did not matter how much they loved each other - things began to crumble before her eyes.

 

It soon was clear that they both harboured great suffering in their souls, and no matter what she did, she could not help Dio escape from the delusions he began to have. He would see visions of monsoons so strong they uprooted whole lands and a woman’s face that seemed to reflect his own. At the end of the dreams, he would abruptly awaken to intense pain that would have him screaming into oblivion. He would claim he was being ripped apart and would suddenly remember the oldest memory he had: several years ago, he was found in the middle of the forest without a clue to where he came from - only the fact his eyes were the colour of starlight.

On their seventh anniversary, they locked themselves in their apartment and simply held each other and cried. She was beginning to have holes in her memory, and he was tortured every day by delusions that came to him with increasing frequency. Even their passionate nights sharing the same bed could not disguise their growing hate for the monster that was growing in between them.

It was on one of these horrid nights that she accidentally thought out loud about the day they met, and her far-fetched suspicions. It didn’t dawn on her how much he would believe them - after all, she could still hardly believe them herself.

“Do you think you were created from some of Wisdom’s stardust?” She asked, trying to control her breathing.

“Wisdom’s stardust?” He asked, eyes struggling to focus on her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you never remembered where you came from. Don’t you ever wonder if--”

“Does that make you Nurture? Is that why I never get better? Are you the reason I wake up in pain?” His eyes burned with concentrated hate, and for the first time, they turned on her.

He pushed her away, further distancing himself from her as if she were the bane of his existence. In the stories from her youth, Nurture was supposed to be the guiding spirit that helped things grow. The tales the adults told, however, were how Nurture helped not only nature grow, but rather anything she came into contact with - positive and negative energies alike.

She hadn’t expected him to believe her musings so wholeheartedly. It was just a children’s tale, summed up as common knowledge that no person these days ever took it as fact.

In the months to follow, he distanced himself from her more and more. She sought further help from institutions and health authorities, but nothing and nobody could keep him long enough to come up with a solution to all his ailments. He only grew resentful of her efforts, but she kept trying to find help for them both. Eventually, certain professionals began to suggest she allow them to accept treatment separately in different facilities, but she knew that despite her worsening condition no one would take care of Dio if they had her admitted apart from him. If not, she was sure he would rot away in some cold room for the rest of his life. She held on for as long as she could, and finally found a place a few cities away that would take them both.

In their last days together, he grew increasingly paranoid - yet a calm resolve seemed to resonate from the depths of his soul, ever affirming what he needed to do to be free of her. He blamed her for his suffering - if they had not met, maybe he would have had a chance at living a better life. These thoughts consumed him even in the deepest of nights when she would find him curled up in some corner of the room, whispering to himself.

She was afraid to agree with his thoughts, and she saw his departure as a long time coming, although for long after she denied she had ever known at all - even to herself. She loved him with all of her broken and battered heart and soul. He repeatedly began to insist he no longer loved her, although when she slept in another room he would always stumble under her blankets at 3AM to hold her as he shivered in fear at the thought of leaving her. The insanity continued for longer than it should have - both of them were unstable and unable to even take care of each other anymore.

The connection they felt, the old stories of great beings that echoed their paths - she began to believe it might be true. The Wisdom in all the tales always gave his love for Nurture, but she knew that if she loved him for the Wisdom he had in his eyes, maybe the little bit of him that lived in Dio now resented her. After all, Wisdom sacrificed everything - Nurture never was able to save him, in the end.

On their last night after their biggest fight, he let her corner him.

“I need to speak with you, Dio,” she said quietly. He was slouched down in a chair in the low light of the room, eyes unfocused, lashes brushing his cheeks with every sluggish blink. The single candle beside him flickered every now and then, the only indication that time was still moving.

She repeated herself again, louder this time so he couldn’t ignore her. “I just need to speak with you.”

He finally turned his head towards her and let go of the breath he was holding in.

“There’s nothing left to say. You know I can no longer be with you,” he sighed coldly. He couldn’t even bear to say her name, much less even look at her. “How can I be with someone I don’t love? How can I be with someone who only loves me because of some twisted fate?”

She swallowed hard and spoke with all the willpower she had not to scream. “I love you for you. Whatever this life is - reincarnation, destiny, I don’t care - if we had a past life before this one, it isn’t the reason I love you now. And don’t you dare lie to me,” she continued immediately, never more sure of anything else in her life.

“I can see it behind your eyes. He’s still there, Dio. He’s still in there, the person who you were just a few months ago. You do not fall out of love with someone that quickly, in just in a matter of days. You can lie to yourself but you cannot lie to me.”

“I don’t love you,” he said emptily, eyes distant and cold. He got up without warning, hands fidgeting and feet walking him past her.

“Don’t lie to me,” she kept saying, pleading. “Because I don’t believe it.”

“Then figure out a way,” he spat out, frustration seeping out of his calm exterior. He was facing her again, and she feared what she saw in his stare.

She looked into his eyes, and a part of her knew it was probably the last time she would be able to. She had been fighting the inevitability of his departure for so long, and was so tired. Would it be easier to just let him go? Would it be cruel to try and force him to stay?

 

He finally turned his gaze towards her.

Eyes that were once filled with great love now were distant and devoid of care, desperate to give up. An almost ghostly hand gripped at the space inside her ribs, erratically squeezing at her heart while pieces of it chipped away. It was a persistent motion that had her heart twitching violently, as if it would burst.

“Dio, please don’t say that. I don’t know what else to say except I love you and I know you love me! Please. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it, but don’t you dare tell me you don’t love me when every day you wake up needing me!”

“Would you like to know just how much I don’t love you?” He whispered, almost to himself, “Would you like to know just how much I don’t care anymore?” And, without breaking eye contact, Dio backed away before finally turning around and walking out of her life, leaving her to inwardly collapse into a deep pit with no salvation in sight. The break she felt down the middle of her heart was catastrophic despite the almost gentle tone of his voice. The sound of her heart shattering was the loudest silence she had ever heard.

 

\------------

She was tired of fighting, and all her spirit had left her the moment he had. She didn’t have to say the answer to his question to know it was true - he truly resented her, and there was nothing she could do anymore to help either of them. Her memory blanked for the longest time, and she never knew what happened directly after those moments. All she knew - day in and day out - was the cold place she woke up in that was always filled with darkness.

Nurture, Change, Time, Wisdom. Not only the Titans of the stories, but things that affected her life in one way or another, whether it be things she seeked or things she lacked. All she wanted now was to die, but no matter how much she tried to tear the thin string holding her life together, she would always wake up in that damn room.

It had been three years now since the day he disappeared, and she just wanted a way out of her pathetic misery. One would think after all that time, she would have begun to heal. And maybe she had, in fragments, but her chest cavity still felt utterly empty without him.

Like a room without even a single lightbulb, terrible things festered there - the walls were torn up with large cuts and scrapes, deep gashes that ran across the ceilings with burnt edges, as if lightning had struck through her chest and incinerated the cavity beyond recognition. And so, on the cold floor the dust had lain, without even the slightest breeze to keep it company within the cold, empty shell where her heart used to live.

She did her best to put herself back together - she really did try. Locked in there for months, she stared at the remains of her heart on the floor for hours and days and weeks on end. And during those months, all she was able to do was run her fingers through those tiny pieces, fighting the urge to shove it down her throat and choke on it. And at times, indulge herself she did: unidentifiable fragments of who she used to be clogging her windpipe until she would vomit everything out again. She would laugh to herself under her breath in between every dry heave, thinking herself a fool every time for even assuming she could die that easily.

Sometimes, her demons would come to play. As she fought to remain conscious, she would feel their fingers brushing the base of her neck, claws running themselves through her hair. Her whole being would vibrate with the violation, but she could never move nor escape. Dark shapes filled the gashes in the walls and closed in on her, clouding her with insurmountable guilt over what she could have done to have convinced him how devoted to him she used to be, and that she would do better if he only stayed with her longer.

Other times, in her mind’s eye he would come back to her. Arms holding her in their strong grip, his lips whispering love into her skin, entwining their limbs together like used to. The memories that held onto her seemed more harsh than the demons themselves, and she feared them far more - since the demons never promised anything other than to taunt her, but the remnants of his presence haunted her and truly made her believe he would still be there when she woke up.

He never was, anymore. Not like before. It was all in the past - A past she could never recover, she knew, so she tried to look forward. But towards what?

Little by little, her tears managed to turn all of what remained of her heart into half-dry clumps of clay. Small windows opened here and there within the walls of her own awful prison, and arms would be stretched out towards her, trying to help. The ones that could reach her would attempt to help her mould the small mass just sitting in her palms - but even the strongest hands were pushed away in the end, cut off at the shoulder by the windows that would slam shut, dropping with a hollow kind of sound at her feet... providing her sustenance until there was nothing left to devour. Rotting away, the bones piled up around her, constant reminders of her own self-loathing and her inability to escape. Eventually, they disintegrated into nothing; as if they never were there to begin with.

\------------

Time passed, her eyes began to clear. And on days she regained even a speck of clarity, she honestly wondered if she would ever be able to leave this place she was withering away in.

Was he really, truly gone?

Every time she returned to that question, her despair would grow deeper. However, the memories of his smile burned ever stronger and she would paw at the dust for weeks on end in her desire to become even a fraction of her whole self again. Tears clouded her vision, screams came alive and died in her throat - but hope bubbled within her so intensely that the day finally came that she managed to cluster the clay together into an almost recognizable shape.

But, then what? What would be the purpose of it all? Nothing would bring him back. Her self-hatred knew no bounds and kept her in that monstrous place, devoid of most traces of life.

Sometimes, she felt the ghost of a heartbeat coming from the tiny, shapeless lump in the middle of the frigid room. It was a weak pulse that would torment her soul with glimpses of his face, the whisper of his touch making her skin quiver and her lips come alive with laughter. But it was always too short-lived - after all, the reality of everything was that he only still loved her while she was asleep, dreaming of a life with him long gone.

In those years without Dio she would continuously wake up in that terribly cold place, always alone and without him. Yet, she could feel his presence on those dark nights, sleeping inside of her within the room that she could never seem to breathe in.

After that day that he had walked away from her she was left with a shattered heart that would crumble into what it became. She was left with things that would permeate the air, and visions that would haunt her for years to come.

She continued to wonder whether there was some super-objective reason for his sudden departure. In the most secret parts of her, she would imagine that it was some grand sacrifice that was truly the best for both of them. She would try and fool herself, desperately reasoning with her own thoughts over his shift away from her; as if there were some underlying purpose - that in the end he was a hero that would turn around and reveal that he had never stopped loving her but for her benefit they simply had to be apart so he could complete some insane part of his life without her. But the truth was nothing she didn’t already know.

So maybe it was her own fault that she had unconsciously put him on a pedestal. The only person she had ever truly loved and loved her in return, for however short the time, was simply a child who would never be able to handle the unconditional love she had for him. The truth was acid burning through her, the truth was beyond mundane, the truth was wholly lacklustre and though she could never bring herself to be truly angry with him - she was angry with the fact her bestowed love was wasted for completely inconsequential reasons.

She had been broken so entirely, for absolutely nothing.

The grey lump in her hands twitched once, and cracked down the middle once more, echoing the day he left her.

Almost immediately, a makeshift window shifted into view - one larger than she had ever seen before - and the two hands that shot into the room like an arrow, aim true, sealing up the fissure and intertwining their fingers in hers in one fell swoop.

A man stepped through the entrance he had made, and pulled himself towards her. He materialized before her in a blink of an eye. He was brighter than any sight she had seen in her insufferable prison in the past years, and her eyes could hardly adjust to the light shining before her. She was sure she was dreaming, but his hands felt so solid.

The man hummed, the sound so warm and beautiful that it reverberated through her very soul.

“Hello, Misah. My name is Rionn.”

\------------

Misah never knew her cold prison could ever be anything but freezing. So when she came to, she felt a tingle in her limbs she hadn’t felt in a long time. Almost as if she were alive again, breathing normally. Inhaling. Exhaling.

Before her eyes could even focus, the first thing she felt were hands on top of hers, the air humming ever so slightly while an ethereal glow was cast upon the space around her. The next thing she felt was that she was leaning on something soft and warm, a strong chest that was breathing along with her, as if to soothe her. She jumped and began to recoil in her shock, but he kept her in place.

“Shh,” Rionn spoke, and the sound was as delicate as the summer rain.

Funny - she had almost forgotten what rain felt like. But his voice nearly drowned her in its dewy softness, almost too angelic to deserve being in this wretched hellhole.

“Why are you here?” Misah managed to finally say, throat dry.

“I’m here to help,” he said simply, and allowed her to tentatively sit up so she could turn around to face him. He kept a loose grip around her, as if she would float away if he didn’t.

“Whoever you are, you should leave, Rionn,” she said without thinking, regretting it the moment it left her lips. Still, she kept going. “What are you even doing here? Who are you? Whatever the answer, whatever the reason… You should leave. You should leave me alone.”

“But you need me,” he said, just as simply as before. As if it could be that simple, being able to trust someone to help you. “You need me and I want to stay, Misah.”

Inhale, exhale.

“I…” she began, but didn’t finish. Her vision blurred and went dark before she could say another word.

 

\------------

 

In her limbo between being conscious and not, she had been sure she dreamed his arrival and the moments that came afterwards. But when she woke a third time, he was still there. The third time, fourth time, fifth time, he was still there - holding onto her as if she were some infant who couldn’t be left alone.

As much as she wanted to push him away, she couldn’t. Resting in his arms was the first time she had been able to sleep soundly since she had descended. She neither dreamed nor had nightmares - only deep, constant slumber that regularly had her gently roused from its depths by the sound of his humming.

\------------

“Why are you here?” She tried again for the nth time. Still weak, she would sometimes try to turn her head towards him.

“I’m here because you need me,” he would always say, eyes boring through her. And just as she would begin to say something, he would always answer with an “I know,” before she could even get it out.

“How do you know?” She asked on what was probably their twelfth day together. “How do you know, how can you acknowledge what I am always on the cusp of saying… when even I don’t know what I’m going to say next?”

He wordlessly caressed her cheek, and brought their intertwined hands to his lips. When he opened his palm, her sealed-up lump of a heart was in their hands once more.

“I can hear what your heart wants,” he whispered.

She snorted. Her hands flew to her mouth. She hadn’t laughed in such a long time, but seeing him with his ear pressed to the lump and lips parted, eyes wide, she couldn’t help it.

“I can hear it,” he said seriously, though he didn’t miss her sudden outburst. He placed it carefully to the side as he switched their positions and braced her weight with her hands weight to avoid toppling over.

“I can hear your heart, even in this small piece you have left. I can hear what your lips will say to me, same with your eyes. I hear everything. Every whisper from every part of you.”

“And what do they say?” Misah asked, waiting with bated breath.

“They say you need me,” he said once again, emphasizing every word with his eyes traveling ever closer to her lips. “You don’t need him anymore. You want me. You need to have me. You can’t live without me.”

Without another word, he began to close the distance between them. He gave her every chance to deny him, to say ‘no,’ to back away from him - but instead of pushing him away, she leaned towards him. She couldn’t deny the energy between them, despite not even knowing who he was. He was offering himself for her. Who was she to say no to comfort, after all this time alone? She craved someone’s love, and gave no thought thereafter of consequences. She was already broken - there was nothing left to lose.

Their lips had hardly touched when suddenly the light was everywhere, blinding her so she had no option but to close her eyes and succumb to the endless warmth. He wrapped his arms around her waist firmly as she slid both hands up his chest and held on to the back of his neck to draw him even closer. Their lips danced against each other as he deepened the kiss, hands roaming over her bruised body as each injury slowly paled and healed, her supple frame then curving against him in renewed strength and shifting herself so she lay beneath him. His lithe figure hovered over Misah for a second before letting his soft weight settle down onto her.

The way his body molded onto hers was achingly familiar, but if her mind was playing tricks on her with this illusion - she welcomed the stark contrast from her lonely existence. If his presence was simply something she was deluding herself with, she would do her best to appreciate it while it was there before it got taken away from her, just like everything else she ever had.

She gripped his hair at the roots and he hummed into her mouth, relishing the feeling. They held onto each other with a deep fervour, as if they never wanted to let each other go again. The hard lines of his body contrasted with her soft ones, and nothing in her little room had ever felt this heated in what felt like decades.

Rionn wrapped her legs around his waist and lifted her up to sit on his lap as they continued feverishly at an intense tempo, until it began to gracefully diminuendo. Passionate embracing became soft kisses on the hollow of his throat and gentle lips on her cheek and nose, until eventually their foreheads simply rested against each other’s. They calmed their breathing together, the tips of their noses lightly touching as he smiled softly.

Her small fists were curled loosely on his chest as he still held her securely around her waist. The soft fabric of his top felt smooth against her hands as she traced tiny circles into the threadbare material. The texture was so soothing against her skin, it--

A sudden flash intruded Misah’s musings. A piece of smooth, blue cloth wiping the lenses of a pair of glasses. The wet ring of a coffee cup against a wooden tabletop before it was wiped away by a strong hand. The steady tick-tock of a clock on the wall. A man tapping a pen against his lips pensively before scribbling something down in a language she didn’t recognize.

 

His sturdy frame leaning against the arms of the chair she was in. Breathing in a subtle something in the air. She couldn’t even see most of his face, but the voice that came out of him, on the other hand…

“Misah?” Rionn’s voice broke through, and the vision began to fade. “Misah, I asked how you were feeling.”

The man in her vision smiled, but in the blink of an eye, his shadowed face was replaced with Rionn’s bright one.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly, unsure of what had just happened. She touched his lips with her fingertips despite herself.

 

She had never before seen the room that had suddenly appeared before her eyes. (It was nothing like the room she had spent so many years in). Or had she?

\------------

During what felt like months, Misah continued to have odd visions now and then. Each time, Rionn would bring her out of her reverie with a touch or a kiss - he never seemed worried, but she definitely was. Some of it was the new room she hardly recognized, and some of it was memories of Dio she thought she had forgotten. Other times it was of landscapes she could swear she had never been to but were as vivid in detail as if she herself had lain in those fields, felt the sun against her face, or felt the wind rush past her as she soared through the sky on a moonlit night.

At first, she chalked it up to dreams - but after more time passed, she begun to doubt. They would never happen when she felt ‘asleep,’ but while she was staring off at nothing or during conversations with Rionn. Soon, she wondered if her own little room with Rionn was even real, either.

She would weep for hours on end, and Rionn could only watch helplessly as sometimes she refused even his touch. Other times, he would have to physically stop her from her own rage, in fear that she would hurt herself further. She would claw at the walls again in her anguish while Rionn tried to restrain her.

“Misah… Misah, please,” he would beg, clamping his arms around her torso, pinning her own arms within his grip. She would sob into his chest, at a loss of what to do. Whenever she slept, she no longer saw anything, but she still begged for death. She missed Dio, but it was empty from the years of his absence. She didn’t know who Rionn was or why he cared about her, but she began to feel increasingly guilty - was she the reason he was stuck in her own prison? Was she the reason he couldn’t leave? Was he eventually going to resent her just like Dio did? She couldn’t bear the thought of losing Rionn despite hardly knowing him, because the way he held her made her feel like she had known him all her life.

She hated being so confused all the time.

“Misah?” He spoke her name tentatively once she had calmed down from one of her outbursts.

She could hardly look at him, and once she did, she saw another room behind him and his clothes had changed, too. Clean, white walls with pale curtains by the window. Moonlight streaming through the glass, casting shadows across the floor into grotesque shapes on the wall.

She couldn’t move, but Rionn touched her forehead with a delicate expression.

“I… I know that I was the--” she began.

“Shh. I know,” he said, just like he always did. She didn’t understand. What was she even trying to say? She really didn’t even know, herself - the same questions returned to her. How did he know what it was she was about to say, each time?

Unfortunately, the outbursts only got worse.

\------------

“Rionn, why are you here? How long will you stay here? Can you even leave?” Misah was afraid of the answers, but her curiosity burned through her. His presence in her little room always seemed too good to be true. She was sure one day she would wake up and he would no longer exist. She knew she was pathetic, clinging onto false hope.

“I want to help you,” he said simply, a broken record, squeezing her hand lightly in his. “I want to help you get better. So I’m here until I can at least do something for you. Isn’t that what I’m here for?”

“Are… are you real?” She murmured, reaching up with fingertip and tracing from his brow bone down to cup his cheek whilst grazing her thumb against his bottom lip. He kissed the pad of her thumb sweetly.

“I’m whatever you need me to be, and I’ll never leave you … unless you ask me to.” He answered her thoughts, then looking at her sadly.

“Is it selfish of me to never let you go?” She continued in a daze. “All I’ve done is ruin others’ lives simply for staying with them. What did I do to deserve you, whether you are some fabrication my mind came up with or not?”

He gathered her in his arms, anticipating tears. They didn’t come, and there was an emptiness in her even he couldn’t reach.

“You deserve love and affection even if you fail,” he mumbled, at a loss. She breathed in slowly, languishing in his touch but not understanding how she could let herself indulge in it, and inhaled--

The smell of his cologne.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in that white room again. The man with the shadowed face was holding her, and while she tried to scream it became stuck in her throat. She felt tired. His arms were warm but he held a needle against her arm. She blinked but the image wouldn’t go away and her vision felt hazy.

 

She felt a wetness against her face. Was she crying? No, a couple of tears had fallen from the man who had his arms around her. His shirt was muddy and dripped on the crisp, white sheets.

“I know I was the one who--” she began to choke out, and he threw the needle across the room and held her tightly as his shoulders shook she blacked out once more.

She woke up again, screaming and unable to even discern where she was anymore.

“Rionn, what’s happening? Am I dying? Ha! Do I finally get to die?” she hysterically laughed, and he gripped her arms to keep her from thrashing.

“Misah. Misah, please! He’s gone, don’t do this,” he blubbered, and it was the first time she had ever seen him lose control. Like a slap in the face, she fought to focus her gaze on him but the remains of her heart in her hands grew hot and pointed and sharp. The floor of her little room was covered in mud.

What was happening?

She looked at Rionn, and a flash of Dio flitted across her vision. That was it! That’s who Rionn was: the parts of Dio that loved her, she thought, in a frenzy. If she sacrificed this illusion, maybe she could leave this wretched room. Maybe Dio would come back. The part of Dio that loved her could simply return and she could live happily with him. Rionn... Rionn was surely just a figment of her imagination that kept her company until she was ready to leave that cold place!

“Rionn, I--” The mud was past their ankles now. The walls were closing in.

She looked at him again, but she couldn’t see Dio anymore. Guilt overtook her, choking her, filling her with regret. Rionn only ever tried to help her. She battled two parts of herself hysterically: one part that wanted to save Rionn and cast him out of that room, despite him only being some contradiction of her mind - the other, convinced that if she sacrificed what they built in her prison then Dio would be there, waiting for her. Was the man with the shadowed face was Dio, waiting for her in that alternate reality? What was the truth?

 

Dio. That's all that mattered.

 

“I know that I--” she began again.

 

His eyes grew wide.

 

She needed Dio, whatever the cost.

“I know that I was the one who killed him.” The words fell from her lips and the world stopped moving as she drove the knife into him.

“I know,” he said sadly as he felt the sharp point puncture him, and in a crash of thunder she was no longer in her sordid room, but almost knee-deep in mud in some hole in the ground.

“I know I was the one who killed him,” she shrieked over the sound of the heavy rain hitting them both. Rionn was attempting to pull them out of the pit, limbs weakening as he felt the blade inside of him.

“Misah, please! He’s gone, he’s gone, you can’t bring him back,” he sobbed, and winced as he tried to get a good hold on her to heave her out of the mouth of the hole in the ground they were in. But Misah resisted, clinging to the lid of the box they were standing in.

“He’s gone,” he repeated again, “Like the last times you came back for him, and the time before that, and the time before that - he can’t come back. Please, let’s go before they know you’re missing again. Misah, please! They won’t let me stay your doctor if they know I let you escape. How can I help you, then? It’s me, Rionn. Look at me. I love you. Please, look at me!”

She resisted his grip and let her weight drop and covered the bones with her own body. As if she had done it before, she kept padding the jagged ribs with mud where the flesh should be. Her body moved of its own accord - feverishly, ritualistically - as if this were not the first time she had visited this grave.

“He needs me! He needs me,” she screamed, and noticed the red rain that pooled with the mud inside the coffin. Rionn was still struggling to hold onto her, and that’s when she noticed the handle sticking out of his stomach. He opened his mouth and only blood came pouring out.

“Rionn?” She whispered. “Rionn!” she screamed louder than ever before, attempting to wipe the blood off his chin with her dirty hands.

“No… No! No, it can’t be,” she wept in hysteria, attempting to touch the knife but recoiling when Rionn started to collapse. Blood and dirt were everywhere, and there was no stopping his wound.

“Mara,” he said, and she froze.

She had never been called that in this lifetime, but in that moment, she knew who he was. Who she was. And most of all, why he had appeared. Everything came rushing back to her.

“Seren?” she wheezed, unable to believe it. Her mind raced, overflowing with answers that didn’t come from her own knowldge.

 

Dio was never the only Wisdom. Out of all the stars in the sky, Dio was not the only one born with Wisdom inside him. He retained some memories, and all resentment - and Rionn, here before her, was all the love for her he had left in the world.

 

She remembered a whispered conversation on a bed surrounded by rose petals. She remembered the soft golden scales on a broad expanse of skin on a man’s back. She remembered everything, including the last words he had said to her before his body burst.

She helped him lay down on the mud, and wept at what she had done. She killed Dio and now Rionn… Seren would die by her hands, yet again. History is always doomed to repeat, it seemed.

“Mara… Mara, don’t cry,” he said, reaching up weakly to cup her cheek. “This was inevitable.”

“The monsoon… Seren, I’m sorry. I was... we were... we were Titans. We were the Titans. In all the stories, we were the Titans who fell in love. And I... Your heart. Your heart burst in trying to take in my monsoon. You died and spread across the universe. I wanted to bring you back…

 

Seren. Seren, my love, it’s... it's been so long since then. Why didn’t I know this was you? How didn’t I know? Why did you ever love me if you knew you were going to suffer? Why? Why did you continue to love me even past your first death?”

“Mara. It was always meant to be you and me,” he said weakly, wishing he could calm her grief. “Nurture and Wisdom. Through all the lifetimes we led since then, I just wanted to find you.

 

In this one… the Creator instilled some of what was left of Time and some of what was left of Disruption, in me. And my other half, too. You know how much Stajha loved you. All so we could do was enter your thoughts, enter where your heart used to be and try to help you, all so we could try and save you. They believed They were doing the best thing for you, but...”

He sputtered, and held onto her hand as his eyes slid in and out of focus.

“But I was too late,” he coughed, blood seeping out of the corners of his mouth. “Dio… if I had been born as Dio, I could have reached you sooner.” He coughed up more blood, and it was as black as the sky above.

 

“Dio had my eyes, but most of all, he contained all of Luulh’s resentment. I know Disruption was your friend but the resentment left from Luulh in Dio didn’t know anything other than the pain she felt.”

“In our first life, it wasn’t your fault. They hunted you. The world hunted you, and I’m sorry I lost you, I’m sorry I let them take you so easily, I’m sorry I couldn’t find you sooner. All you did in our first life was help the world grow, and why I died wasn’t your fault. It was my decision to take in your pain.

 

My heart bursting wasn’t your doing. I had only… I only hoped that in this lifetime… that we could only have been able to be together.”

“There are no more lifetimes after this,” she concluded, eyes coming alive with the realization. “If the Creator put all the remaining Titans inside you, and you die by my hands, there... there must be no more lifetimes. Eimeri, Luulh, Stajha. Seren… I killed you all, it’s all my fault,” Mara sobbed.

“I love you,” Seren said, simply. “I have always loved you. In whatever life, I have always loved you.”

“And I, you,” she whispered, as his head rolled to the side and his eyes, once brilliantly gold in another lifetime, emptied for the last time.

She felt her soul being torn open. She screamed and screamed but nothing mattered anymore. She had singlehandedly broken the reincarnation cycle, and while she was damned for the rest of eternity, she only hoped that her other Titans could finally rest.

After a long, long while, Nurture finally quieted and gently lay in between Seren’s human body and Dio’s remains, staring blankly into the crying sky. There were no stars to be seen.

 

Pulling the coffin lid over them all, she returned permanently to her cold, pitch-black room, bloodstained hands holding herself tight in a place far beyond hell itself.

\------------

 

_The human world without the Titans, doomed to decay, crumbles slowly. Only the damned Nurture forever remains in the third new world to live with her guilt for all eternity._

 

\------------

 

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” Misah had asked.

“Yes,” he replied after a long while, watching her carefully.

“Do you know about the origins of our new world?” she also asked, trying to remember what she knew.

“Of course. There’s the Creator, who made Time, Disruption, Nurture, and Wisdom…”

Misah felt her insides churn at the mention of the latter two Titans. “Did you ever hear stories about them?”

He chuckled. “Only the greatest romance of all time.”

“True romance doesn’t usually end well,” Misah said apprehensively.

He pondered for a bit. “But I hear Wisdom loved Nurture with all his being, and she as well in return, for him. How could one not find that beautiful in itself?”

“He was practically immortal, and his dragon’s heart burst because of her,” she said quietly, and he paused. “What use was there for them to have beauty and love if they couldn’t be together in the end?”

“Maybe one day, they will be,” Rionn smiled sadly, and tucked her under his chin whilst he hummed her a lullaby.

“Half of Wisdom dispersed throughout the skies,” she murmured, and after a long pause she asked the questions that were really on her mind.

 

“Do you think he’s happy, wherever he is? At least his suffering is now over, right? At least both halves of Wisdom live in the same place, right?” Misah pondered, with her cheek resting against his chest.

Rionn sighed deeply.

“Wherever he is, I’m sure Nurture is on her way to him. Maybe they’re together now, and we just don’t know it. After all, what do we know of Titans and their love lives?” he whispered. “We’re only human.”

 

\------------

**Author's Note:**

> (Hopefully this helps with a bit of clarity...)  
> \- Nurture/Mara (her whole being) was reborn as Misah's psyches/physical body  
> \- Part of Disruption/Luulh (in part) was reborn as part of both Dio & Rionn's psyches/physical bodies  
> \- What was left of Time/Eimeri was reborn into Rionn's psyche/physical body  
> \- What was left of Wisdom/Stajha+Seren was reborn into Dio & Rionn's psyche/physical body  
> Who would I cast in most of these roles?  
> The Creator - ?  
> Mara/Misah - myself  
> Seren - Wu Yifan  
> The Prince - Oh Sehun  
> Luulh - (if not the musician friend it was based on, then) Wendy Son  
> Stajha - (if not the actor friend it was based on, then) Krystal Jung  
> Eimeri - (if not the artist/former actor friend, or the dancer friend I had in mind, then) Kim Yewon (GFriend)  
> Dio - Do Kyungsoo  
> Rionn - Zhang Yixing  
> Thanks for reading! In the future versions I hope to flesh out everything more, so please, please forgive faults in logic/discrepancies. Also, sorry for typos I have missed correcting!


End file.
